Practical constraints to timber management among African American owners of heir property

Managing timberland can increase productivity and income for owners, but serious constraints to meeting these or other goals face owners of heir property. The term heir property is used to describe property owned as an undivided interest among heirs of an original owner who died without a probated will. Heirs may be numerous, span multiple generations and geographies, and have very different connections to the land. Heir property is a common phenomenon among African American landowners in the southeastern United States ("South"), a region where timberland represents over 60 percent of total land use. Because owners are numerous, title to the land is considered "clouded," limiting access to government programs and commercial credit that could be used to engage in the many activities (e.g., stand establishment, fertilization, prescribed burning, thinning, harvesting, replanting) associated with timberland management. We use available data to estimate that over one million acres of timberland in the South are owned as heir property. We document the financial costs and the specific obstacles likely to be encountered by heir property owners, including long time horizons associated with timberland management and the likelihood that heir owners representing different generations may not agree on how to manage the property. We propose a set of policy changes that state and federal government agencies could consider to increase productivity and income for heir property owners while improving overall forest health.